Do Schools Matter for Early School Leaving? Individual and School Influences in Australia

Abstract

It is often assumed that schools themselves play an important role in students not completing school. However, the literature is inconsistent on what school characteristics influence school leaving, and identified school effects may be spurious due to the absence, or poor measurement, of appropriate individual-level influences. The importance of schools on school leaving is examined in the Australian context using longitudinal data based on the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)'s 2003 Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which includes more comprehensive measures of socioeconomic background and student achievement than available previously. T..